"Now is the time to ensure that the U of Calgary educational programs on CFS/ME are a huge success.

Attached are two posters:

The CME Flyer is appropriate for health care professionals of all types. Please make copies (black and white copies on brightly colored paper are best) and give them to each health care professional that you deal with eg. family doctor, specialist, massage therapist, physio, home care nurse, pharmacist.

The Public Lecture flyer is appropriate for all. Please make copies and ask permission to post them at places where affected people or family members may notice them eg. health food store, grocery store, library, pharmacy, health clinics, church, health club.

Imagine if your doctor attended the CME course and was able to make helpful suggestions about managing your health. Imagine if your friends and family attended the public lecture and got a better understanding of what you are going through.

With your help this can be possible ... and don't forget to register yourself!"

Dr Ellie Stein, psychiatrist

"After attending, participants will be able to:

* Use the Canadian Consensus Guidelines and check lists to accurately diagnose patients presenting with the signs & symptoms of CFS/ME

* Use the Guidelines’ history, physical examination and laboratory tests to exclude other diseases that can cause chronic fatigue, sleep disorders, pain and cognitive difficulties

* Assess occupational disability in CFS/ME

* Differentiate CFS/ME from psychiatric disorders"

Apart from Dr Stein, there will be other psychiatrists like professor Pierre Flor Henry who is a Clinical Professor and the Director of the Clinical Diagnosticsand Research Centre of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta but he is also the Co-Author of the Canadian Consensus Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of ME/CFS

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Some say that Ean was thrown into the swimming pool to drown his disease or his false illness beliefs for that matter. But as he couldn’t move they had to jump into the water and rescue him.

Others say that he was just having Hydrotherapy and that Ean was at no danger whatsoever at any stage.

All we know is that 001/7, our master blaster of espionage with ME, has just mailed ME a picture of the new State of the Art Attack Hydrotherapy room at the Magic CBT Kingdom and as you can see, it is a very safe place indeed ……….

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) is one of the illnesses included among those for consideration during Invisible Illness Week (September 8-14, 2008). An amazing 96 per cent of all illness is invisible and an equally incredible percentage of people with ME remain hidden, unaccounted for and unrepresented.

Some of the reasons for an illness being invisible are obvious. People, who are too ill to go out, or only on occasion when they feel a little better, remain behind closed doors and, ironically, may contribute to it by staying in to avoid disbelief, ridicule and prejudice from an ignorant population and, sometimes, doctors who prefer to say they must be malingering or attention seeking rather than admit they do not understand it.

No one knows, for sure, how many people have ME but it is likely that it is towards the lower end of the UK Department of Health's estimate of between two and four people in 1,000. The range is probably so large because it also includes all illnesses with chronic fatigue as a symptom. The resulting total not only "hides" the number of ME sufferers within CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)/ME patients but distorts any conclusions from experiments in which they are used.

So, where are they? It is so important to find these missing people for a number of reasons, not least to know that they are not alone. We can't know how many people are in any distinct group until we define its characteristics (blue eyes, Sagittarians, over six feet tall etc.) and exclude those which do not fit (all other colour eyes, zodiac signs, under six feet tall etc).

The bigger the sample of people having the most pure definition, the better picture of what we are dealing with will emerge and the more likely we are to find a common physical cause which should, in turn, suggest effective treatment towards cure.

In the meantime, people with ME need advice about the best treatments available for symptoms such as pain, or to aid sleep and they need support with practical matters, including benefits and the opportunity to meet other people in the same boat.

ME Free For All.Org is among those saying that we should make this Invisible Illness Week the one when we take ME off the list of invisible illnesses because it no longer remains behind closed doors.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Psychiatrist Professor Simon Wessely advises the prescription of lithium for patients with ME/CFS:

“There is no doubt that at least half of CFS patients have a disorder of mood.The management of affective disorders is an essential part of the treatment of CFS/ME.

Numerous trials attest to the efficacy of tricyclic antidepressants in the treatment of fatigue states. Patients who fail to respond should be treated along similar lines to those proposed for treatment-resistant depression.

"Plenty of people are still dying of diseases which other people do not believe." (Dr. M.N.C. Dukes).CBT and GET for ME: "There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity."

Robertson Davies

THE NICEGUIDELINES BLOG VERSUS THE NICEGUIDELINES

These are NOT the NICEGuidelines. This is "The NICEGUIDELINES BLOG." What are the differences:

The NICE Guidelines are biased publications based on the GOBSART (Good Old Boys Sitting Around a Table) approach.

This Blog however is not only evidence based but also uses critical reading to judge papers and articles. I also use common sense and listen to others. And finally I read both psychiatric and medical evidence and opinions from around the world to come to a conclusion.

I’m not sponsored by anybody or paid by whatever company as seems to be the norm with many psycho people who publish the same article almost on a weekly base.

So if you value an opinion, formed as a result of participating in many ME activities, for example being bed bound for years, you have come to the right BLOG. All these activities have allowed me to form an opinion as a Doctor and as a Patient. And that is important as the voice of the latter is discarded by many including NICE.

If you don’t read this blog, you will miss out on “accredited” medical education. If you do read it, you may actually become a doctor who doesn’t stop thinking or forgets to ask critical questions. Many good things, including satisfied patients are at your command.

So, if you arrived here for the straightforward GOBSART approach, I will disappoint you. If you are interested in forming your own opinion about ME, and other interesting things, read on!

About Dr. Speedy.

I am a Family Physician or GP as it is called in Australia or the UK. I am also an ME patient unfortunately. Bedbound that is. So at the moment I’m in private practice so to speak. I’ve got only one patient, ME, or is it me?

I graduated as a doctor a long time ago, and I am the founder and editor of The NICEGUIDELINES BLOG, an internet based ME BLOG that is devoted to critical reading and cheering you or ME up.

I have the following conflict of interest: I would like to get better and see that the wasting of public money on CBT (talk therapy for a neurological disease, really helpful) and other silly therapies for ME stops, and will be used in better ways.

My goal has always been to help, and if possible, cure patients. With this disease you will soon find out that many psychiatrists and psychologists are only in it to make money and get their name in the spotlight. And what happens to and with the patients is irrelevant.

I stand to benefit both mentally, physically and also financially if this silliness would stop, and I would get my health back, and I can go back to work and have a normal life again. Please evaluate my postings with this in mind! And remember, there are also (lots of) psychiatrists and psychologists who haven’t switched their brain off.